"Hello, this is your captain speaking. There is absolutely no cause for alarm."
...
"The wings are not on fire."
I finally made myself promise to see a doctor about it when I was on the second of two flight legs, stuffed in the cramped airline seat of maybe a 747 flying from Denver to Seattle, feeling a sudden onset of what I can only describe as scary-weird-lightheadedness, which is quite different from the typical and much more pleasant lightheadedness I normally experience. There was the weird feeling of something wrong, and the breathing, and then the panic as my vision and hearing faded while I scrambled to find a comfortable slouching position from which I wouldnt cause a scene when I lost consciousness seconds later. Fortunately, thank God, I didn't actually lose consciousness. I just hung on the edge for a few minutes. I actually fumbled in front of me for my waterbottle and took a drink or two during the time that I could neither see nor hear. Then I saw red, and then slowly the cabin came back. A few minutes later I felt fine.
I later decided against seeing a doctor, because I pretty much hate seeing them unless I have no choice. Don't get me wrong; I do love going to teaching hospitals and interacting with all of the attractive medical students. But I still hate dealing with my health in a professional capacity unless I am about to die. I forget what changed my mind last week (yeah, this happened a while ago; I originally wasn't going to tell this story. Don't tell my parents) but it must have been bad because guess where I was monday? The belltown clinic. Oh thats right, I realized I didn't want to fly myself anywhere until I had at least talked to a doctor or something. My penultimate visit to this clinic is the one where I got a flu vaccine while I was really sick and later passsed out just outside of a rite aide. Same doctor too. I probably should have told her about that. Anyway.
Sooooo. Medical stuff. Medications. Medicallyness. Medicaidecare. Yeah. My doctor...well...apparently losing consciousness in a sitting position and for no apparent reason is a Big Deal. I also had some random rash on my foot, which had appeared like the morning before, and which I wasn't planning on telling her about. You see, my body is kind of like a car; when things start breaking, like one of the door locks or a sticky turn signal switch or a faulty indicator, or a giant inexplicable bruise on my foot, I just get used to it and forget about it until someone points it out. Well, she asked specifically if I had a rash. How did she know? Science magic. Anyway. It must have been scary because she called in like two other doctors to look at it, like it was a zombie bite. They asked a bunch of questions, especially about previous visits to people like cardiologists. Getting a medical history out of me is a rather difficult process, since as I can't even remember what I had for lunch yesterday it is really tough to remember what some cardiologist said two years ago after I crashed my car into a minivan.
In any case, the doctor ordered a bunch of tests and told me I'm not allowed to exercise, because there is a small chance I might suddenly collapse and die instantly. Something about having an aorta that is too big. I'm not entirely sure I'm a fan of any medical condition where something is too big. Also, she told me I definitely shouldn't pilot anything until this is sorted out, and to not even step on a plane (I guess as a passenger). And with those words, my FAA Medical Certificate just became worthless. Except for when I pulled it out to find out the last time I had a physical. I think half of the people I talked to are under the mistaken impression that I am an actual, professional airline pilot in my spare time from being a programmer. In retrospect, I probably should have gone straight to an FAA certified doctor, because I'm going to have to go to one anyway for a new medical certificate. Assuming I can get one. I'm going to have a hard time swallowing the irony if I can never again exercise the privileges of my $20,000 private pilot license for lack of a medical cert.
I didn't know this, but doctors can order "stat" tests. Like, this-is-an-emergency-do-the-test-within-48-hours kind of tests. So I got an "echocardiogram" which is just like when a pregnant girl gets an ultrasound in the movies, only the aim it at your heart and try to stick it in between your ribs, specifically, right where all the still-painful scar tissue is from the chest tube from when I crashed my car into a minivan. Oh, and they also did a bubble test. You know how accidently injecting yourself with air can kill you? Well, a bubble test involves injecting air into your veins to make it go into your heart. They give you an IV, and then they take this special Y-adapter for syringes, and by alternately pumping two syringes back and forth, they mix some kind of saline solution until its "frothy" and then inject that directly into your vein while the person watches the bubbles in your heart with the ultrasound thingy. It did not hurt, but it was seriously disconcerting to watch. Then, this like, intern, stayed behind to practice her ultrasounding skills on me. She was kind enough to mention that they hardly ever see someone as young as me. So, great. I've done so much sitting and programming that my body is apparently deteriorating like a 50 year old. I probably deserve it--there are days that I've consumed like 4 sodas and then had McDonald's for dinner. What can I say? I'm a lonely, incompetant cook. My older sister's family gave me a recipe book for either my birthday or christmas and I only got around to trying one of them like Sunday. I had to pass up the first two because not only were they too difficult to even try, but I didn't even recognize the ingredients and I don't even know what the hell ratatouille is, other than being a cartoon about a rat chef. The recipe I found bascially involved buying raw shrimp, throwing them on a pan with some old spice and "broiling" them for like 5 minutes. I even had trouble with that. First, I bought raw shrimp that were mysteriously nearly as expensive as the cut and cooked ready-to-serve cocktail shrimp, which made me call into question the entire point of cooking for myself. Then, I had to looked up "devein" on the internet. I also had to look up the word "broil." Then, I had to figure out how to thaw the shrimp because they were frozen and I had already turned the oven on to "broil," thinking it needed to preheat. Well, that got turned off again before I could start. So the shrimp are finally like thawed after three minutes in cold water, and then I discovered that they were already deveined. Then all I had to do was pull the shells off of each of them. As I got near the end, the shrimp that were still in the thawing water bucket (an unwashed throw-away tupperware container I just bought) started to get really soggy, like they were going to just melt away. This seemed strange to me, since I believe shrimp actually come from water, but then again this was fresh water...idk. So I had to empty that out. Eventually I git all of the shrimp lined up on the pan. Then I tried to shake on the old bay. That didn't go so well on account of me failing to realize that the container had more openings than the giant hole that was, in every shake, dumping a quantity of seasoning so large that it was comparable in mass to the shrimp it landed on. Then, I turned on the broiler again, and like ten minute later I ate all of tasty shrimp before I could even pick out which netflix movie to watch. Then I had a stomach ache.
Sorry, I digress. The echo cardio people (who I suppose precede the foxtrot-cardio people) told me that someone would look at it and blah blah blah the results UNLESS there was some major problem (like I'm going to suddenly die and become a zombie and bite people) -- then someone would call me. Unfortunately, my phone (made by LG, plan with AT&T) gets really bad reception at my desk. The reception is so bad that I cannot send a text message unless I hold the phone up, above my head, like an electronic simba
, and when I get a call, the call gets dropped before I can reach an area of the building where I can actually hear the person. I've basically hung up on almost every medical person that has tried to call me in the past few days.I also got blood drawn. The waiting room was full of people that were sick and/or in those ugly little electric go-carts that they always advertise during episodes of the original Star Trek series. This served to remind me again that I'm not supposed to be having problems like this yet. Then this melodramatic and gay looking Edward character with sparkles on his face sucked some blood out of my vein. Just kidding; it was a polite asian dude. He took like five vials of it. I didn't look. Thanks to television and videogames and Dexter and that child birthing video we saw in health class this one time I am normally immune to gore. I can actually handle any amount of blood as long as it is not my own, and like, on its way out.
So, I don't really know whats going to happen now. My new plan to walk to work every day just got shot to pieces by my doctor. Thats pretty sad that walking is exercise for me--I need to be way, way way way wayyy more in shape to handle the incredible ski season I plan on having but can't afford this winter. I'm not worried though. They'll probably tell me, once again, that there is something mysteriously wrong with some part of me and they don't know what it is but it's not going to kill me, and maybe there is just some random thing I can't do.
Like before, when I found out during and indoor soccer game that I can't be out of shape and then sprint for 30 minutes straight without ever catching my breath.
What I do know is that I am probably going to have to cancel the solo bender I had planned for this weekend in Portland. I had found three bars on the internet that sounded promising. One was apparently, like, all pink, and served martinis, and gave you a free manicure with your drink order. I was pretty sure there would be some girls there. This was going to be the first of the trips where I find out if I am capable of having fun in other cities (i.e. whether the fact that I hate my life here is Seattle's fault, or just me). Going out and meeting people, I have discovered (thanks to a secret and miserable trip to New York I took on one of my birthdays) is really tough to do alone. However, I don't think I have any single guy friends I want to take. I have plenty of guy friends that are dating or engaged to someone. Also, if I brought anyone I would need a least two people then. For some reason, I really only like hanging out in groups of 3 people or more, because when its just two people, I'm responsible for like half of the conversation and I really just can't keep up. Its ends up being draining and awkward. There are some people that I get along with great when it is just me and them, but...well they are almost all girls. I mean, come on--tell me you didn't see that one coming. Most of them live in a different time zone also. So, if I ever get around to test driving Portland, its just going to be me, Jessica, and a lot of rum.
Anyway, I only wrote this because it is a good story. Please do not do anything awkward like call...anyone, or experience emotions such as sympathy, or breathe a word of this to my parents. Based on the way their reaction to a minor 3-day hospitalization a few years ago, I think the optimal form of notice is for them to not know anything until my death certificate is signed. Ok maybe thats not true. It sounded great in my head though.
No comments:
Post a Comment